Real Life Horrors: Krokodil Finds it’s Way to North America

[WARNING:Below are some very disturbing and horrifying REAL pictures of the effects of the drug Krokodil. These pictures are NOT special effects and are extremely disturbing.]

In 2011 I posted two articles on the extremely dangerous Russian drug Krokodil (here and here). Krokodil started rearing it’s ugle head in Russia among addicts who no longer wanted to pay the high costs of heroin. This drug has earned the name krokodil for two reasons: Addicts develop dark, scaly lesions on their skin and the drug tends to eat its victims alive, like a crocodile (krokodil is also the Russian word for “crocodile”). This is not a possible side effect of the drug, it’s a guarantee. If you take krokodil, eventually you flesh will begin to fall off your body down to the bone. According to the online news agency, The Independent, krokodil is:

desomorphine, a synthetic opiate many times more powerful than heroin that is created from a complex chain of mixing and chemical reactions, which the addicts perform from memory several times a day. While heroin costs £20 to £60 per dose, desomorphine can be “cooked” from codeine-based headache pills that cost £2 per pack, and other household ingredients available cheaply from the markets.

So to save some money addicts are taking things like codeine-based painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil (as well as a bunch of vials, syringes, and cooking implements to mix and cook the mixture) and then inject it into themselves. What’s really fucked up is that these addicts know exactly where this road is going to lead to. First they’ll experience some green, scaly skin which will continue to get worse and worse until hunks of flesh begin to fall off your person until you are left only with bone exposed. Check out my earlier articles on this horrifying drug.

Drug addiction and addiction of any kind is a horrible thing.

What originally made this article something you read, shook your head over, and then went on your day was the fact that it seemed to be confined to Russia. But like viruses and shitty music, drugs know no borders. So why am I re-addressing krokodil? Because of the following headline I caught from the Huffington Post:

“Krokodil, The Flesh-Eating Street Drug That Rots Skin From Inside-Out, Expands to Illinois”

That’s right; this horrible cook-it-yourself drug has made it’s way to American shores. According to the article, Dr. Abhin Singala is treating the first cases of krokodil reported in the Chicago metro area:

“As of late as last week, the first cases – a few people in Utah and Arizona – were reported to have been using the heroin-like drug, which rots the skin from the inside out,” Singala said in a Tuesday press release. “It is a horrific way to get sick. The smell of rotten flesh permeates the room. Intensive treatment and skin grafts are required, but they often are not enough to save limbs or lives.”

Here’s one of the first newscasts on the drug:

Why is it that users inject this shit into their bodies knowing the result will be loss of skin down to the bone? Unfortunately it’s a simple explanation that makes no sense to non-addicts. Heroin addicts are attracted to krokodil due to it’s inexpensive method of making it from ingredients you can find and get anywhere. They keep taking it because it’s highly addictive. For example, it generally takes around a week to get over the worst withdraw effects of heroin. For krokodil it takes a month!! And the life expectancy of a krokodil user is two years, and that’s being generous. Many articles I read on this drug give users one year.

I personally don’t believe krokodil will become the “new heroin” in America for a few reasons. The main one being, it’s not good business!! Why would a dealer start distributing a drug that he/she knows is going to kill their customers between one to two years? With heroin you can develop a life long customer. But by writing this I don’t mean to downplay the possible destructive effects it could have. As long as there’s strung out junkies who can’t afford heroin, krokodil will always be a danger. Any way you slice it, this is a horrifying drug with effects that even the most hardcore horror writer/director couldn’t even have dreamt up.

Let me refer to the words of a krokodil addict himself from Russia. Zhenya describes the way it feels when you inject krokodil into your body:

“You can feel how disgusting it is when you’re doing it,” he recalls. “You’re dreaming of heroin, of something that feels clean and not like poison. But you can’t afford it, so you keep doing the krokodil. Until you die.”